Quotes

Quote - "It is a matter not so much of concealing as of withholding and what is withheld is not so much the truth as the facts"

It is a matter not so much of concealing as of withholding and what is withheld is not so much the truth as the facts.

cabinet secretary, Sir Burke Trend, 1963

 

 


 

The magazine Private Eye provoked panic in Whitehall when it identified C, the letter used to denote the head of MI6, hitherto secret papers released at the public record office yesterday [Wed 16 Feb 2000 01.44 GMT] reveal.

The
magazine broke existing media conventions by naming Sir Dick White as
C, standing for Chief, in a column by Claud Cockburn, in August 1963. In
a small paragraph headed "Note to foreign agents" he named Sir Dick as
the "head of what you so romantically term the British Secret Service".

Quote - You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting

 

"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn’t see exactly where or how
to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse
than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the
next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others,
when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You
don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of
your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of
doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that
restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

 

An excerpt from

They Thought They Were Free

The Germans, 1933-45

Milton Mayer

https://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

Quote - "We will love her while the light lasts, and when darkness comes, we will not forget her.”

 

Quote - "We will love her while the light lasts, and when darkness comes, we will not forget her.”

 

 

Quote - "disappointment ..."

‘Do animals .. .” she said, and paused to consider, ‘feel disappointment
in each other, Jack, the way humans do?’

‘Well...

‘Or is that what makes us human, the fact that we can feel
immense disappointment in each other?’ She poured herself another
glass of wine.

‘I don’t know,’ said Jack, cautiously. “What do you think?’

‘I wonder if they ever go through the trauma of sensing that
someone they once liked, maybe even loved, is now turning into
someone they don’t respect.’

‘Why do you say that, Martha? Where’s that coming from?’ Jack
was chewing on his cheeks again.

‘Do animals, birds, fish, whatever, fall in and out of love?’

‘I believe they can.’

‘In that case,’ she continued drowsily, ‘can a fish, Jack, listen, can
a fish love another fish, but then one day imagine that they do not in
fact love that fish and that they now love another fish, only to realise at
some later date that they did actually love that first fish more than they
would ever love another fish for the rest of their lives, and therefore
feel that their existence is overcome with a feeling of regret that they

Quote - "We get so tangled up in knots, we humans, trying to think everything through, trying to guess at outcomes ..."

‘I learnt a lot of things during the war, Irene,’ he said, after a
pause.   ‘Most of them of no use whatsoever.   But there’s one thing
I can’t unlearn, even if I wanted to, and it’s that life is very short,
and very precious, and if we can’t find a way to be happy in the
one brief span we’re allowed, then there really isn’t a lot of point
to any of it.’   He paused again and Irene finally turned to look at
him.   He smiled slightly, kindly, and she knew he lived in a
different world to the one she did.   ‘So I’ve a proposition for you,
and I don’t want you to think about it too much. We get so
tangled up in knots, we humans, trying to think everything
through, trying to guess at outcomes we can’t possibly know.   So
please just listen. I adore you. Marry me.’

"The Hiding Places 76 hb by  Katherine Webb"

Quote - "Well, I still hate novels..."

August 1814  : Well, I still hate novels. They still seem to me to be tissues of exaggeration, simplification, a sweetness that falsifics; and now I know this truth from, as it were, the inside, having written one myself, and marked all the sleights and tricks required to tease out a very partial understanding, a perished cloth more holes than thread, into what seems a smooth continuous fabric.

"Golden Hill 335 hb by Francis Spufford"

Quote - "Everything can be divided into decades"

Ten years. Everything can be divided into decades. Three of Brendan. One of Bruno. How many more did she have before her time was up? Two perhaps, three if she’s lucky? Measured like this how short it all is. We spend most of the first half of our lives getting used to it. Learning the ropes, making mistakes and preparing for what lies ahead. And, for a moment, there’s a feeling that it all finally makes sense, that we’ve arrived and understood something about the world. Then, before we know it, it’s all over. The tide coming in and washing away our footprints to leave an unmarked beach.

"Rainsongs Page 7 by Sue Hubbard"

Quote-"You know the worst thing about this government? the war on woke. Woke means caring for people & can only be a good thing"

You know the worst thing about this government? It’s the war on woke. Woke means caring for people and it can only be a good thing to care for people no matter what.”

Chinese

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/24/jeremy-hunt-fac...

 

Quote - "The pleasure of what we enjoy is lost by wanting more"’

The pleasure of what we enjoy is lost by wanting more

Chinese

 

Quote - "important enough to risk somebody else's"’

...few things are so important you would risk your life for them, but all sorts of things are important enough to risk somebody else’s life.


Chapter 12

The Bullet That Missed: (The Thursday Murder Club 3)
By Richard Osman

 

 


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